Monday, February 06, 2012

Thandai / Spiced Almond Drink

This traditional drink was first introduced by my neighbour friend Sangeetha, We both had a great time while preparing this delicious drink..Thanks Sangeetha for sharing this refreshing recipe..

Many of you, may aware of Thandai, if not it is a popular healthy drink in North India . It is embedded with tradition of Holi festival and act as a coolant in hot weather. Mostly in North India Bhang is added to milk or ice cream and added to thandai and Varanasi is famous place for it.

Ingredients: (Yield : 2 )

Almonds - 1/4 cup

Poppy seeds - 1 tbs

Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp

Black peppercorns - 3/4 tsp or to taste

Whole Green Cardamom - 2 nos

Sugar - 2 tbsp or to taste

Milk - 3/4 cup

Water - 1 cup

Method A:

Soak almonds for 4 hours and peel off the skin.

Soak poppy seeds for an hour.

Dry grind fennel seeds, peppercorns, cardamom into fine powder.

Grind almonds and poppy seeds into fine paste by adding little water in a mixer grinder.

Add dry spice powder to almond paste and grind again by adding required water little by little.

Add sugar to this paste and grind for a minute.

Strain with muslin cloth or with fine mesh strainer.

Grind the residue again with the remaining water and extract the juice completely with the help of strainer.

Add cool milk to this juice. Mix well and Serve chill.

Taste Great with fresh ground.

Traditional method B: ( for larger quantity and for freezing)

Wash and Soak all the ingredients together except sugar, milk for at least 2 hours.

Grind all soaked ingredient into fine paste using wet grinder or idly grinder with required amount of water.

When the paste is fine, add remaining water and mix well.

Place a muslin cloth over a large deep vessel.

Pour the ground paste over the muslin cloth and tie the edges of the cloth together.

Press the muslin cloth with your palms and extract the liquid from the paste into vessel.

Add required amount of water little by little to extract more liquid.

Transfer the liquid into the storing container and repress to extract more juice till the residue becomes dry and husk like.

Freeze it, t will be good for more than a year.

Before serving:

Defrost required amount of extracted juice.

Add Sugar, milk to the juice and mix well till sugar dissolves completely.

Refrigerate for an hour or Serve chill.

Instant method C:

Dry Grind all the ingredient except sugar into fine powder.

Add sugar and grind it again,

Store it in a air tight container.

Before serving:

Add required tablespoon of Thandai spice powder into the mixer and grind to a fine paste by adding little water.

Add cool milk and run the mixer for 30 seconds.

If needed, filter before serving.

Mix and Serve with ice or ice cream.

Note:

Melon seeds, rose water and or any nuts can be add according to their taste but avoid all the three( melon seeds, rose water, nuts) when you preparing for freezing.

Blanched & peeled almonds can also be used.

If you are planning to freeze the extracted juice. Multiple the ingredients according to the servings.

Coffee grinder will do the best job for instant mix if not ordinary mixer grinder will do.